Review: HTC Titan II for AT&T

Windows Phones all ship with Internet Explorer, a decent browser that does a fine job of rendering HTML. During my tests, the browser loaded web sites over both HSPA+ and LTE at about the same speed — which was pretty quick. IE9 isn't based on WebKit which the browsers in Android and iOS are. I find the lack of WebKit limits the functionality of IE9 a bit, as I find it is better at rendering web sites on a phone.

In terms of controls, the address bar is at the bottom of the screen instead of the top. The browser doesn't offer forward or back buttons; only stop or refresh. You have to press the three dots to the right of the address bar to access other options. Web pages can be pinned to the start screen or easily shared via social networks.

What stinks is that while there are some third-party browser apps available in the Marketplace, none of them are any good; the most important ones — Opera, Firefox, Chrome — are missing.

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Customize

As for customizing your Windows Phone, the lock screen wallpaper can be switched up, the color of the home screen tiles adjusted, and the background set to either white or black. Other than that, you can only mix up the live tiles and hubs that are pinned to the home screen and set custom ringers. As noted earlier, there is only one home screen with Windows Phone, and there are no true widgets.